


You'd help me out of the dark

by writergirl8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> “How many times have you met Scott that you would know whether or not he would trick his broken up best friends into having an important personal conversation in a haunted mansion?”</i> </p><p>  <i>“Oh, the mansion itself isn’t haunted,” the voice says dismissively. “It’s merely been taken over by creatures who live haunted lives.”</i></p><p>  <i>“That’s the same thing,” Stiles points out, agitated. “That’s literally the same thing.” </i></p><p> <br/>---</p><p>Stiles and Lydia get trapped inside a haunted mansion. Luckily, they're always the ones who figure it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'd help me out of the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I would like to preface this by saying that this is SO not my genre. Like, I wanted to try writing a Scooby Doo Stydia fic, but holy hell. I will be back at the non-magic related fanfiction starting... now. 
> 
> (With that in mind, please lower your expectations by a bazillion.) 
> 
> This was written for the 2016 Stiles Lydia Fest. Thank you so much to the moderators for running Stiles Lydia fest, they did an amazing job and I'm so happy they're doing this. You guys are so appreciated! (My prompt was a pretty mansion that I originally intended on doing a royalty AU with and then I realized that was a cop out and decided to challenge myself. Clearly I challenged myself too much.)
> 
> Also, a special thanks to my incredible betas, blackjacktheboss, lukesasswalker, and madgrad2011 . ALSO thanks to my invisible collaborator and the better half of this random writing duo, itsalwayslydia, for doing the mythology research. I'm sorry I failed you with this fic but I hope you know that it wouldn't exist without you. Neither would my Lysaac fic. Actually, damn, stop making me write stuff. 
> 
> Anyways, please enjoy and feel free to laugh at the idea me, a girl who has never watched a horror movie or seen a single damn episode of Scooby Doo, trying to write this.
> 
> If you need me, you can find me at rongasm on tumblr.

Through the windshield of Lydia's car, the sprawling lawn mansion looks even greener than it had in the too-perfect pictures. She squints at it through her heavy black sunglasses, her head ducking slightly as she attempts to see all the way to the top of the building

It's beautiful, that's true. But there's dread accumulating in her stomach that has nothing to do with the elegance of the topiary and the opulence of the large building. More accurately, the dread has to do with the fact that she is going to taint its elegance with the bitterness that has been pulsing in her gut for the past few months. It's so _pretty_ , and untarnished, and lately Lydia has felt nothing of the sort.

Even more daunting than the beauty of the mansion is the jeep that waits at the end of the driveway, a newer model than the one that has too many high school memories of playful kisses and getting each other off in the backseat and driving to school together in the morning and home at night. She pulls up to it, annoyed to see Stiles leaning against the passenger's side of his car, pointedly staring at his wrist. It does not escape her notice that he isn't wearing a watch.

He's wearing her favorite shirt on him, too; the tight blue one that they had bought together. Normally, she'd write it off as a coincidence, but it's Stiles Stilinski, and he's the pettiest asshole she's ever had the misfortune to meet. Of course he's wearing a shirt that she usually can't bear to keep on his body because the alternative is so much _warmer_.

"You're late," he says as she steps out of the car into the thick heat of the early evening, her high heeled shoes crunching against the gravel. She offers him a glare before she slams the door of her car shut too hard and turns towards him, crossing her arms over the tight teal wrap dress that she's wearing. The silver belt around her middle digs hard into her arms, but Lydia ignores this. She'd rather take the pain than admit that something was wrong.

"I came from work," she says, causing him to scoff slightly, pushing off of the car with his shoulder and heading towards the door to the mansion. "Do you have a problem with me earning my living?"

"Earning it? No. What _you_ do? Yes."

"Are you really going to go into this here?" she snaps, catching up to him easily even in her heels.

"I can do this by myself," he says, brow furrowed, stepping onto the bottom step of the mansion. "I don't know why Scott called you, I don't need—"

"Stop," she says impatiently, stamping her foot against the step and climbing up. Stiles goes up two more. "Scott is getting _married_ and he asked us to come look at this place. We don't need to air our dirty laundry on the stairs. Let's just… get in and get out." She lets that linger in the air for a moment before she mutters, "Which is what you know how to do best, anyways."

Stiles puts up a hand, stopping her.

"Did you just really take a dig at our sex life? Really?"

She lifts an eyebrow, dipping her head to the side prettily.

"Oh, no, of course not. That was _actually_ a dig at how you treated our relationship." He stares at her, wordless for a moment. "You know, the whole leaving thing, and all that."

Satisfied with herself, Lydia brushes up the steps after him, raising a fist to knock at the door of the mansion.

"There's nobody in there right now," calls out a female voice. She turns around to see a blonde woman striding towards the two of them, a pleasant smile forced onto her face. "But you can just grab the handle and go right in!"

"Great," Stiles says under his breath, knocking Lydia out of the way so that he can move past her and force the door open. It pops ajar with a groan, leaving a sunlit passageway for the two of them to follow into the front hall of the mansion. "We just want to be really quick," he says to the woman, walking backwards as he speaks. Lydia follows behind him, hoping that he accidentally knocks his hip against the ancient looking end table. "We're just looking for the basics so that we can give the information to our friend. He's the groom."

"Scott McCall, right?" The woman asks pleasantly. "The groom is Scott McCall?"

"That's the one," Stiles says absently, looking around the dimly lit passageway. "It's really dark in here. Do you guys not have electricity yet? It's 2019. Seems kinda 'been there, done that.'"

Lydia places her hands on her hips.

"Can you _not_ start insulting this establishment two minutes after getting here, _in front_ of the woman who owns it? Would that be possible for you to do, or—?"

"It's not a problem," the woman says easily, walking past Lydia in her short heels and her navy blue pantsuit. She smells of something extremely rotten— Lydia hadn't been able to smell it outside, but it's _pungent_. Like fish and eggs and mud, all rolled into one foul scent. "Would you close the door?" she adds to Stiles.

" _Wait_ ," Lydia says, a note of panic in her voice, but it's too late. He shoves it shut with his foot, still looking around the atrium, and it slides closed with a heavy clatter. Stiles looks over at her, confused.

"What?"

Lydia blinks, slightly disoriented. Now that they're no longer outside of the mansion, she realizes that the faint buzzing that is always in the back of her head has gotten louder. She swallows, her brows tilted towards each other as she looks over the woman, wondering if she'd just imagined the scent, not sure how she could have possibly done that when it's so strong.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," she says, composing herself and quickly thinking of a strategy. "I'm Lydia Martin. It's lovely to meet you." She walks four steps forward and sticks her hand out towards the woman.

But the owner shrinks back in surprise, her sharp teeth coming out as she sees Lydia gesturing to her. Lydia takes a step back, knocking into Stiles' chest as the lady jumps into the air and doesn't come down, shifting instead into a creature with a terrifyingly skeletal face who hisses at the two of them before landing on two oddly shaped feet.

He grins at the horror on Lydia's face, thin, papery lips stretching across mossy teeth. They've been in this situation so many times that it only takes a moment for the whole transition to set in; just a few seconds for her to adjust her perception of the situation that they're in.

"What did you do with that woman?" she asks boldly.

The leer on his gaunt face is enough to make Lydia take another step back into Stiles, whose hand snakes around her waist, steadying her against him.

"I disposed of her," the creature says, gesturing errantly with long, thick nails which are more like claws. They remind her of Jackson's kanima form, and she tries not to shudder at the memory.

"You killed her," Stiles says, voice rough. "You _killed_ her."

The short creature walks forward, teeth sticking out more. Lydia sweeps her eyes over the dry patches of dead flesh on his body and the vacant look in his eyes. He's disgusting in a way that she has encountered too many times before.

"I could tell by the taste of her blood that she was a smoker," says the creature. "She was on her way out with or without me."

Lydia feels nausea creep up as she watches him, her mind whirring with panic.

"You're a ghoul," guesses Stiles, hand tightening on Lydia's waist.

"They told me you were the smart one," he replies.

"I'm the smart one," Lydia refutes, narrowing her eyes. "And I'm getting _out_ of here."

She snatches up Stiles' hand, already knowing that it won't work as she runs up to the door and pulls at it desperately.

"Lydia," he says harshly. "Stop."

"Stand back," she instructs.

"No," he says. "Save your str—"

But she screams anyways, shoving her hands backwards, knocking her elbows into his chest before she pushes them forward and towards the door. It shudders, but doesn't break open. She screams again, louder this time, and Stiles stumbles backwards, hands over his ears.

When the door doesn't give way, she covers her open mouth with her hand, staring at it.

"Oh my god," she whispers.

When she whips around to demand an answer from the ghoul, she sees that he has vanished.

"Where did he—?"

Lydia whirls around towards Stiles, panicked. "We have to call Scott. We have to."

He nods gravely, digging into his pocket for his cell phone.

"Oh, _fuck_."

Somehow, Lydia is only marginally surprised when he comes up without anything. She checks her purse and sees that all of her money is missing, as well as her phone.

"Ghouls, they, um, they're said to steal shit. Coins and stuff. And I guess cell phones, because why not play some doodle jump while they're at it?"

"Did he lure us here to kill us?" Lydia asks, her voice desperate.

Stiles shakes his head for a few moment before he speaks, his eyes back on the door.

"Uh. Yes? No. I don't know. Maybe." His eyes swivel from the door to Lydia, and she knows exactly what he's thinking as he stares at her, his eyes too serious. "Let's just… check the windows, maybe? Can you shatter them with your voice?"

Her heart is sinking low in her stomach because she already knows, instinctively, that most of the windows in their reach are boarded up, contributing to the darkness of the front hall. Still, she breathes out shakily and nods.

"Let's go."

Without Stiles next to her, stepping deeper into the house would feel impossible. As it is, Lydia's heels sinking deeper into the thick, plum colored carpet with each step she takes make her feel as though she's just walking herself deeper into the eighth circle of hell.

The first room is a drawing room, decorated with plush arm chairs with colors that have clearly faded in vibrance over time. As Lydia had suspected, the windows are mostly boarded up, except for the ones too high for their reach. The walls are lined with high bookshelves, but there are no ladders for reaching the books.

She takes careful, short steps into the room, ignoring the churning of her stomach as she walks closer to one of the windows.

"Could you break that?" Stiles questions, standing behind her.

"Even if I could, I'm not sure how we'd get up there," she admits. The furniture in the room isn't tall enough to reach the enormous windows at the top, even if she were to stand on his shoulders.

He sighs heavily, backing away.

"Well, there might be something else in here that's useful."

She turns around and watches him begin looking around the room, opening drawers and peering inside, searching for contents that might be useful. Lydia follows suit moments later, studying the bookshelves carefully. There's several history books on the shelf that she brushes her fingers against, noting that there is a very thin layer of dust on the dark wood. She wonders how long ago the ghoul had killed the owner.

"Aha!" Stiles says triumphantly. She turns around to see him holding a thick candle stick, one that looks like the kind you'd see on tables at a wedding. "Hang on, lemme just light it."

He's got a whole survival pack in his jeep, which is why it's awful that they're locked inside, but Stiles manages to come up with matches and sparks them, lighting the candle with a minor degree of happiness on his face. Ghoul: zero, Stiles: one.

At least until it blows out.

"That's weird," Stiles says, relighting the candle. It stays lit for a moment, and he nods, putting the match away, until it blows out again. "Motherfucker."

"Maybe you're near a draft," suggests Lydia. He lights it one more time. Moves over. It blows out again. He swallows, looking up, his eyes meeting Lydia's in the rapidly darkening room. "Stiles…."

She's cut off by a group of books being knocked off of the bookshelf behind her, one by one, a few of them landing on her head.

"Lydia!" He dives forward, grabbing her and pulling her away from them. Some of her hair escapes her bun as he tugs her harshly away from the books that are falling quickly from the shelves. "Fuck, are you okay?"

She stands up slowly, shaking her head, befuddled.

"What," she begins, annoyed. "Was that?" Stiles just shakes his head. "Grab the candles and let's go."

He gathers them up and puts them in Lydia's purse when she holds it open for him. They're about to head towards the door when Lydia hears an odd sound. She halts, and Stiles follows suit as she searches the room with her eyes, finally finding a rattling doorknob.

She takes a step forward, captivated by it.

"Lydia," he says warningly. "Let's _go_."

"What if there's someone else trapped in here?" she says quietly, holding a hand out to stop him from making a grab for her. "Hang on, Stiles. What if they heard us talking?"

"Okay. What if whatever knocked the books off of the shelf is rattling the doorknob?"

Lydia cocks her head, staring at the door.

"But what if it's a _person_?"

He shakes his head warily, yet Lydia continues to walk forward until she hears a loud clattering sound and turns around in time to see a portrait falling from the wall, narrowly missing Stiles' head.

It's enough to break her from the trance that she is in.

"Okay, run," she agrees, snatching up his hand and pulling him out of the room. She hears screaming behind them, and it almost causes her to stop, but Stiles tugs at her, hard, and she keeps on running, eventually reaching the large, spiralling staircase that leads to the upper floor of the house, carpeted in the same plum colored fabric as the front hall.

"Should we go upstairs?" Stiles asks uncertainly, just as the chandelier begins shaking and trembling above them. Lydia walks towards it, squinting, looking up to try to see if anything is shaking it. But there's nobody at the top of it; no evil looking creature leering down at her from the ceiling, shaking the chandelier.

"How," she asks, voice desperate. "How is that—?"

"Lydia, move."

"No, but—"

"Lydia!"

Stiles pulls her away _just_ in time as it thuds to the floor, shaking and shivering there. She turns into him as the crystals on it explode, and Stiles places his arm over the back of her head, ducking his head into her neck to protect his eyes.

Her hair is in a bun, so there's nothing to stop her from feeling his warm breath on her neck, and for a moment, a wave of calm washes over her at the smell of Stiles, of too much detergent and the deodorant that she's always associated with happiness. He smells like their sheets used to, because he's the one who always did the wash, and even in her fear and misery, Lydia still finds herself being transported home just at the feeling of being pulled against his chest.

When the dust finally settles from the chandelier, she becomes acutely aware of how eerily silent this house is. There is no noise except for the sound of them breathing as they remain entangled together, touching like this for the first time in months.

"Upstairs," she agrees breathily, shaking herself out of the home that is his arms around her. "Maybe there's some sort of balcony that we can try to jump off of."

"It's cute that you think I'm letting you jump off a balcony," he says warily as he follows her up the staircase.

"What if it's the only way out?"

"What if you die?"

"What if we die anyways?" she asks pointedly, standing at the top of the landing.

"You're _not_ dying," he says firmly. "You still owe me six dollars from that time we went to the grocery store and your debit card got declined."

She purses her lips.

"That was _you_."

He ignores this, following her down the hallway that is lined with black and white striped wallpaper. It's dark. Lydia wonders if they should light the candles.

"Besides, I have shit to hold over your head still. I'm not done being mad at you, you can't be dead."

"Why would you be mad at _me_?" she asks, squinting down the hallway, trying to make out shapes in the near darkness. "Is this literally the second time today that I have to remind you that you're the one who removed yourself our relationship?"

It still stabs her in the gut to say it. Most days, she comes home from work too late and drinks a lot of wine and stares at the TV, half expecting him to show up in the rain and tell her that he still loves her, which sounds like something that this idiot would do.

(It hasn't rained since a few weeks after they broke up. California is not being helpful in this endeavor.)

"Hang on," Stiles says, stopping with a hand on her arm. "You don't think… you don't think Scott set this up so that we'd have to talk to each other? Right?"

Lydia raises her eyebrows.

"You think Scott McCall just has a ghoul lying around, waiting to terrorize us into seeing each other for the first time since we broke up and have a conversation about our relationship?"

"Seems like something he'd do," Stiles says musingly. "Right?"

"I'm going to have to disagree," comes a different voice.

Both of them whip around at the sound of it. It seeps into Lydia's bones slowly, causing her heart to pick up in her chest at the confidence and velvety life it has. The ghoul had sounded shaky and weak and strange, but this sounds like a regular, confident voice. Like a human.

"You're going to disagree with our theory?" Stiles questions, frowning. She almost smiles at how easily he settles into the moment. Disembodied voice? No problem. Been there, done that. "How many times have you met Scott that you would know whether or not he would trick his broken up best friends into having an important personal conversation in a haunted mansion?"

"Oh, the mansion itself isn't haunted," the voice says dismissively. Stiles turns to Lydia, gesturing for her to open her purse and pull out a candle. "It's merely been taken over by creatures who live haunted lives."

"That's the same thing," Stiles points out, agitated. "That's _literally_ the same thing."

"So when you're not here, this is a perfectly nice place to be killed?" Lydia asks, voice loud.

"Exactly," the voice replies. "And don't bother lighting that candle, Ms. Martin. At least not until I'm gone."

She sighs, lowering it back into the purse.

"Noted."

"Sorry, is anybody going to tell me what you want from us?" Stiles interjects. "I'm guessing you drew us here to kill us and eat our flesh and drain the blood from our bodies, yadda yadda yadda, but is there something we're supposed to be doing in the meantime? Scrabble, maybe? I'm really good at Scrabble."

"He's not better than me at Scrabble," Lydia interjects, heart beating too fast in her throat as she turns around slowly in a circle, trying to figure out what she's looking for. The next time the voice speaks, he's in a different place. Stiles startles from it, hand instinctively reaching out to grasp Lydia's elbow.

"Hmmm," says the voice. "I didn't have anything in mind, really. Maybe… maybe you could _run_."

They're still for a moment. Then there's another screaming noise. It's so close and so loud that it wraps its knobbly fingers around Lydia's bones and causes her heart to go cold in her body.

"Come on," urges Stiles, and she nods as both of them turn around and start running away from the scream, diving towards the darkness instead of away from it. They run down winding hallways until the scream has faded off into the distance, but the smell of death and mothballs only gets stronger, and somehow she knows that they're running towards fear, not away from it.

"Light the candle," instructs Lydia, handing one off to Stiles with shaking fingers. The hem of her tight skirt had ripped up the side as she ran, and her teeth are chattering slightly, but she squares her chin, trying not to let Stiles know how much she's trembling.

"Let's find a bedroom, maybe there's blankets," he says, referencing her shivering.

So much for that plan.

She hears him cursing as he attempts to light a match in the darkness, until suddenly a flame flickers to life and she's looking directly up at him. At the circles under his eyes, the fear on his face, and the heavy furrow of his brows as he looks at her too. His face is shadowed, but the eyes are the same, as is the slight upturn of the nose that she has kissed so many times.

He looks almost as bad as the ghoul had as he lights the candle that she holds up for him.

"Ready?" he says when they've got two candles lit and are holding them high above their heads. Lydia nods shakily, and they step deeper into the hallway, their torsos flickering in long shadows on the dusty carpet.

The first few rooms they open doors to seem like bathrooms and converted dressing rooms for people hosting events in the mansion. There aren't any windows or balconies in them, so Lydia and Stiles wordlessly agree to move on.

"There has to be something here," Lydia says, frustrated. "And _why_ is it so dark?"

It hadn't been night when they'd arrived at the mansion, not even close, and some time has to have passed, but not this much, When they open the doors into boarded up rooms, not even a little bit of light seeps through the cracks.

The building is still too quiet, which makes it even odder that Lydia has the distinct impression that somebody is watching the two of them.

"Here," Stiles says after some time, when their candle has finally illuminated a vast bedchamber. "Come on, Lydia."

"You don't have to help me."

He makes a noise that sounds disturbingly similar to a laugh considering the situation that they're in. She realizes that she's been _leaning_ on him, and that's when it sets in that she hasn't used her active powers in a very long time. Her body feels heavy as Stiles guides her over to the bed. He carefully pulls down the covers and helps her into it, tightening them around her shoulders.

"You still cold, Lyds?" he murmurs, smoothing her hair over her forehead.

The pillow smells like roses, and she's tired, and she's got a headache from all the voices, and she misses Stiles Stilinski, her boyfriend, her best friend, arguably one of the people in this world who was simply meant to be her soulmate.

She yanks on his arm until he finally gets into the bed with her, gathering her up in his arms while he leans his back against the headboard. Her head stops thudding as his scent takes over for the second time tonight, this time mixed with sweat.

Missing him collapses on her; three tears slip down her cheeks, feeling _messy_ despite the fact that they're nothing, they're just tears. But they are the headache that she lives with every day, they are the nights spent on the couch numbing herself to the world, they are the realization that they are stuck in this horrible situation and she doesn't even know if Stiles loves her still.

They are the realization that she has every single ability to make herself not feel _anything_ , but as soon as she's standing next to Stiles Stilinski, the world bursts into bleeding color again. She can't get used to him. She can't stop wanting.

As she falls asleep, Lydia thinks she can feel his fingers gently wiping silent tears off of her cheeks.

(---)

She's in a dark room, and there's a creature staring at her which smells stiflingly similar to the ghoul. But no matter how far Lydia runs through the blackness of the dream, she can't escape the creature. It looks like a human being, but he has skin that is a cool blue and eyes that are unamused as they stare at Lydia, watching her _run run run_ and not be able to escape.

"Who are you?" she pants, exhausted from trying to get away. She sticks her chin out stubbornly, staring right into its odd black eyes, which are set off even more strongly by its strangely colored skin. When she speaks, the shift in its eyes is traceable. She knows he's smiling, even though his lips don't curve upwards. "What?" she asks. "What are you doing?"

He kneels on the floor, right next to a body in a pure white dress that hadn't been there a moment before.

"Don't hurt her!" demands Lydia, taking a step forward. "Get away!"

She attempts to use her scream to shove the creature away from the body, but it ends up throwing her backwards into the blackness. She lands on the floor, skidding across it in her dress, her elbows knocking against something that she cannot see— the only illuminated thing in her dream is this creature and the body which it is now biting into, rotten teeth sinking into flesh.

Despite the fact that the girl is dead and cannot feel a thing, Lydia's scar from Peter Hale seems to tingle in sympathy. She forces herself to stand up and begin running, wanting to shove the creature away from the corpse, wanting him to just let it be.

Lydia hasn't felt peace in years. She thinks she's starting to romanticize the peacefulness of death.

The run back to the creature and the body seems shorter than the fall. Lydia focuses on her breathing as she pumps her legs quickly, coming to a halt when she realizes that he's growing _larger_ from drinking the blood. He's doubled in size in the time that she's been running, and is still crouched triumphantly over the prone body.

"Get away from her!" she snaps, hurling her voice towards the creature. He looks up, still seeming happy despite the fact that his face is expressionless. With one shift of his arm, he pushes the body over, rolling it so that it is facing Lydia.

The face is deathly pale, with bright red lips that are the same color as the creature's. Her eyes are open, a soft, pretty brown that seem too light for how empty they are. Some of her dark hair is falling into her open mouth as her arm lolls across the floor, crushed uselessly against her body, encased in a dark green jacket.

" _Allison_ ," Lydia screams as the creature chomps into another piece of her flesh and continues slurping blood from the wound.

She screams, screams, _screams_ , desperate, but no matter how hard she runs, she can't reach the two of them.

She finally wakes up when Allison's eyes blink, just once.

When she bolts up in bed, she is startled to find that her reality is even darker than the dream she'd been having. Lydia heaves in a tremulous breath, pulling air in for a scream, and that's when she feels a hand cover her mouth.

"Shhhh, shhh. Lydia, _shhhh_." She wishes his voice would make her heart slow down instead of speeding up. He crawls behind her, his legs on either side of her body, his hand still on her mouth. "We're still in the mansion, there's still someone after us. You were running on adrenaline and you haven't screamed in a while so after the adrenaline wore off you passed out. It's been a few hours, I think, but I'm not sure. Everything's been quiet." When he removes his hand from her mouth, it's still popped open. She tilts her head back against his shoulder, leaning against him as her breaths blow out unsteadily into the quiet air. "We just have to make it through the night, Lydia," he whispers against her. "Just tonight, and then Scott will notice something's wrong and come find us in the morning."

She straightens up slowly, feeling wisps come down from her bun and dance around her face, messy and long.

"You're okay?" she asks, feeling timid for some odd reason.

Honestly, she doesn't think either of them are sure how do this like _this_. Not like this. Lydia isn't sure if she's still supposed to feel like she would die for him, but she does, she _would_.

"I'm fine," he says, laughing a bit. "How's your head?"

"Not as bad," she tells him. "It's actually—" Lydia stops talking.

"What?"

She can't see him, but she knows exactly which frown he's wearing just from his tone of voice.

"The ghoul," she says. "He said… he said that someone had told him you were smart. Do you think he's working with the voice we heard?"

"That makes sense," Stiles agrees. "Maybe there's more. Maybe they're working together."

"To kill us?" Lydia says, frowning. "But… wouldn't they have done that already? Wouldn't that have been easier to do than taunt us?"

"Maybe they just enjoy it," suggests Stiles.

"It seems… just, awfully coincidental, doesn't it?" she asks, whispering it to him. Lydia reluctantly exits his embrace, turning around so that she's facing him in the darkness. She can't see him as well as she wants to, so she grabs for his hand, squeezing it. There's an enormous part of her that just doesn't care that they're broken up— she's still his, if he wants her. She's going to love him for so much longer than just this. He must know that; hiding is futile. "Would they have done this to _anybody_ who came today?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" She sucks in a breath. "We're members of a _pack_. You're a human who was invaded by an evil spirit, I'm a banshee, we have an _alpha_. Could that possibly be a coincidence?"

In the darkness, Stiles shakes his head helplessly.

"I don't know," he responds. "I think—" He stops talking when the dresser in the corner begins to shiver. The items slip and fall off of it, hitting the floor loudly. "We gotta get out of here," he says, scrambling up and tugging Lydia off of the bed.

"Mhm," she agrees, following.

There's a knock at the door. They both stop.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Stiles groans. The dresser falls over. "Fuck."

"What should we—?" Lydia starts to ask, but suddenly the door has fallen down and she is speechless, looking at the creature standing in the entrance.

It's the same one from her dream, and it has turned the door into a pile of _matchsticks_ as it stares down at the two of them. Its icy blue hand grabs for them, and Stiles and Lydia both skid backwards against the wall, staring up at the tremendous figure.

"What. The fuck. Is _that_?"

"The Beast was bigger," she reasons. "Right?"

"Uhhhh…"

When they're too far away for the creature's long arms, he breaks the doorway with his massive shoulders, grunting and growling as he tries to reach the two of them.

"Well that's just not fair," Stiles grumbles as he swipes for them. Stiles shoves Lydia onto the bed and they roll over to the other side, confusing him only momentarily before he begins to go after them. "Is he getting _bigger_?"

"From drinking blood," Lydia says, remembering her dream. "They increase in size after they drink blood."

The odd thing is that he looks so _human_ — the flesh, the eyes, the way his pointy teeth jeer at the two of them. Lydia's eyes trace him as they duck and jump away from his swiping hands, not too terrified to be interested in the new mythology that has constantly been flooding their lives since sophomore year of high school.

"Can you stop cataloguing his attributes and actually run?" demands Stiles, shoving her a little too aggressively out of the way as the creature's hand makes another swipe for them.

"Look at him, Stiles, he's—"

She stops talking when a gun, seemingly coming from nowhere, falls onto the floor in front of them.

A gun. Dropping from the ceiling. Settling at Stiles' feet.

He'd learned to use one when they were eighteen or nineteen, but she's still always surprised to see him touch one— the way his hands always automatically seem to know how to work the trigger. She'd come over to his house after school to make out and find him in his basement, pointing the barrel of a gun repeatedly at a target Chris Argent had helped him fashion.

Now, when he stoops down to pick the gun up, Lydia finds relief washing over herself. She wouldn't always have, but the grim resignation in his eyes is enough to remind her of the person he was forced to become. And he became that person just for situations like these: to protect her. So when Stiles raises the gun into the air and fires, Lydia doesn't feel anything but relief. Maybe it'll be over soon. He has a gun now. Maybe they can survive the night.

The bullet flies at the creature, reaching its mark easily. It flies into his mouth, hitting the back of his throat. Triumph soars in Lydia's stomach as he reflexively swallows the bullet. And then opens his mouth, spitting it right back at them.

Stiles' lips pull into a snarl as he cocks the gun again and begins firing more rapidly this time, his stance wide, his arms stiff as the gun fires over and over again. Lydia realizes what's happening before he does. She grabs him by the arm, tugging him into a nearby closet because the bullets are ricocheting off of the creature's body and rocketing all around the room.

"What the _hell_?" Stiles pants. Lydia snatches the gun from him and clicks the safety into place before handing it back to him.

"That doesn't work on him," she says.

"I thought _I_ was Captain Obvious. Get your own ship."

She kicks him because she's _angry_ and now is not the time to be making the stupidest joke ever.

"How is this funny?"

"Lydia, that thing can't take bullets. We're never gonna defeat that thing. We're gonna die in here. Let me laugh."

Lydia groans, leaning against the back wall as she fights off the lump of fear in the back of her throat.

"I can't believe you broke up with me and I'm still going to die with you. Stupid wedding."

"We should definitely haunt Scott for this," Stiles agrees. "Well, _you_ can haunt Scott for this. I'm just gonna haunt him cuz I miss 'im."

Tears prickle the corners of her eyes as she waits for the sound of roaring outside of the door to get louder and closer. She feels Stiles' hand sliding up her arm, trying to comfort her, but Lydia shakes her head, brushing his hand off of her body.

"No," she murmurs. "I can't."

There's a moment of terrible, awkward silence.

"Hey," he says, leaning on the opposite wall so that he can nudge her foot gently with his. "Um, if I die first you can totally use my corpse as a shield. I wouldn't mind at all. I'm selfless like that."

She snorts, not wanting to laugh because it's absurd and dark and she doesn't want to die, not like this, but Stiles is such a dick and she _loves_ him, it's in the core of who she is to be in love with this man and being around him hurts.

But she doesn't want to tell him that, so instead she says this:

"Shit, my _heels_ are in there."

"Really? That's your priority right now?"

"Two hundred dollar heels? That's always my priority."

He laughs quietly, knocking his head back against the wall, and that's when she hears a sharp intake of breath from him.

"Did you hit your head too hard?" she asks. " _Again_?"

"Uh, no, that's not it this time," he says quietly. "Lydia, it's hollow behind there."

Her heart begins to rise in her stomach, beating hopefully, getting faster as she pushes herself off of her wall and slams her hands onto the one that Stiles had just been leaning on.

"Is there a knob?" she asks breathlessly.

He's silent for a moment, and she knows he's throwing her a sarcastic glare as his hands feel around the wall as well, shaking against it. She hears a tiny click, and then the door pops out towards the two of them, squeezing against their bodies in the tight closet. They don't even think about it. It takes a few moments of maneuvering, but eventually they get themselves through the door, not even bothering to check to see where it's going before they leave. Stiles snaps the door shut behind himself, just to make sure, and then they both begin feeling around the walls for some sort of sign of where they are.

"Stone," Stiles says. "Narrow."

Lydia quirks a brow, annoyed.

"Are you just stating facts?"

"You bet your cute ass I am."

She lets out a small gasp of surprise as her hand drags against a cobweb on the wall. They begin carefully ascending what is clearly a staircase, despite the fact that Lydia cannot see it. The steps are wider than normal ones, and occasionally her bare feet brush against gravel that makes her wince in pain. But Stiles is straight ahead; she can make out the shape of his broad back moving in the darkness, and she follows him like she always has.

"I think I see a doorway," he murmurs after several minutes and several sharp curves. "Do you see that shape there?"

She squints in the darkness.

"No. But I trust you."

He exhales lengthily, pausing on the steps for a moment, then seems to make up his mind and grabs for her hand in the dark. They walk the rest of the way with their fingers entwined, Stiles' thumb rubbing soothingly across Lydia's hand.

When he pushes against the door in the archway, waiting for it to give in to his weight, Lydia doesn't even remember to be worried about whether or not it will open. She doesn't remember to worry until after, when she's already feeling relief because they _made it_.

There's high windows, not reachable to them in the large room, but the light from the moon casts the room into some illumination. Lydia can see a few sinks, a giant wooden island in the center of the room, a tiny table, a stove, and two ovens.

"It's a kitchen," Lydia says in relief.

Stiles scrambles to light the stove while Lydia searches for two glasses and heads over to the sink, filling them with water. So many events are held at the mansion that everything in the kitchen is modern and large. In the fridge, she manages to find some cheese, and there's crackers in a cabinet that Stiles checks. They settle on the floor so that they can look at each other by the light of the burners that are casting a lazy, bluish glow around the kitchen.

For several moments, they munch on the crackers in companionable silence. When Lydia's eyes drift around the kitchen for a moment, taking in the mouldings in the corners and the large beater plugged into the wall, she isn't surprised to find Stiles' eyes on her face when she looks back. He is gazing at her with soft eyes that cause a strange, familiar feeling to tug at her stomach. When she catches him, he startles. She laughs through her nose, tucking some hair behind her ear before realizing that her neat chignon from this morning is almost entirely undone.

She watches him for a moment, taking in the awe and certainty and love in his eyes, before she slowly takes down her hair, letting it fall down her back in pieces that are wavy from being up all day.

"Are you happy?" Stiles asks abruptly, but it doesn't surprise her because she saw it coming.

She shakes her head.

"No," she whispers.

"Do you like your new apartment?"

"It's got a breakfast nook."

"Oh, no way!"

"I keep books there because I'm only half unpacked."

He seems surprised.

"You?"

Lydia shrugs.

"I guess it doesn't really seem like home."

She knows she should add a 'yet' on the end. She knows.

But she doesn't.

"I miss you," he says.

"I know you do," replies Lydia— at least, now she does. She chews on a cracker, her throat closing up even as she tries to remain composed.

Stiles seems determined not to let her.

"Do you... Do you maybe miss me too?"

She sets down the cracker. His eyes are flickering in the blue light, and for the first time, she thinks she might be able to spot some tears welling up in them. She wonders if he's as tired as she's been lately. He's sitting there in the blue shirt that they had bought together and Lydia's suddenly wondering if he hadn't worn it to taunt her at all. Maybe he'd worn it because it's armor. It gives him strength. Reminds him of when they were good.

Her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she bites into it. It looks like Stiles is holding his breath, waiting to find out if there's even remotely a chance left in this world.

"Why did you break up with me?"

He shakes his head, slowly at first, then faster.

"C'mon. You know why."

His gaze drops to his fingers, fiddling with crackers on the floor. But, no. He doesn't get to do that. He doesn't get to hide from her when Lydia has been refusing to hide from him this whole time. Every instinct of hers has been telling her to run all day, but she runs towards him instead of away from him. Because there's something about this, something about _him_ , that runs deeper in her than even her instinct to self-preserve.

There's no facade around Stiles. Even when they're broken up, they're both on the same side of the fence.

Lydia grips his jaw and tugs his face to meet hers.

"You never _told_ me," she says fiercely.

"I did."

"You said you had to. That you didn't want to be with me anymore. And then you… you _walked_." He's silent. She can see the shame on his face, but she doesn't know if that's better or worse. "Just… tell me why and I'll drop it."

Something seems to still in his eyes when she says that. He leans into her hand where it is brushing against his cheek, tender despite the anguish that she is feeling at everything they are not.

"You were falling out of love with me," he says, voice too quiet .

"I _wasn't_."

"I saw it. You didn't take that job… you gave it up for me, and I… I know it was your choice. I know that I let you decide. But you decided _wrong_ , and you knew it. Every day you'd come home from work and you knew that it wasn't supposed to be like that, you knew it was my fault. You resented me, and I could see it. You were falling out of love with me. So I… I gave you an opportunity to escape. I left _for_ you."

She wants to slap him in the face, but she's too stunned to even move. After all the nights of wondering why, of trying not to break down, of staring at the phone and wondering if she was allowed to call Scott and talk about it… Stiles still loved her. He'd always loved her. He hadn't broken up with her because he didn't want her. He broke up with her because… because…

"You were scared," she tells him.

"Terrified," he admits. "I didn't want to sit there and watch us fall apart. I didn't want my unraveling to be parallel to ours. So I sped ours up and I got myself out so I could deal with it in peace."

"By 'in peace' I'm assuming you mean 'by yourself.'"

He winces.

"Yeah."

Lydia shakes her head, disbelieving.

"How did that work out for you?"

He laughs bitterly.

"Seeing you pull up in this driveway has been the best thing that happened to me since the morning we broke up."

"When I kissed you before I left for work?" she says, feeling some lightness in her gut becauses she has been living in that moment and it means so much that it wasn't nothing; that he remembers it too.

"Okay, so I'm predictable."

"Listen to me. I have never, Stiles, been successful in falling out of love with you. Not ever. And oh _god_ have I tried."

"I know you have."

He looks small.

"No, you… you understand that I hate that anybody has the ability to hurt me. You've always understood that. So why would you think I would give any of myself to you if I didn't mean it with everything I had?"

"Circumstances change."

She presses her forehead against his.

"This _doesn't_." Her lips curve up slightly, her chest aching for him. "You're _you,_ Stiles."

He stares at her, eyes serious, mouth trembling. Knowing that he's been hurting just as much as she has somehow patches a wound over the hole. It didn't feel _right_ to him either. Not being together didn't feel fine.

She slowly comes forward, settling into his lap and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She can feel his breath against her neck as he ducks into her, hiding from their reality in her skin, nosing her neck when she wraps her fingers around his hair and pulls him tighter against her.

"Oh god," he sighs. "I definitely didn't see today ending like this."

She pulls back, a little amused.

"Really? No version of you imagining today's events ended in me straddling you?"

His eyes float from her eyes to her lips and he shakes his head.

"Well, no version that I feel comfortable discussing with you when we're trapped in a haunted mansion together."

Lydia laughs, kissing his forehead, then his cheek.

"Just so you know," she murmurs, drawing his head back so that he's forced to look at her. She can't hide forever, as much as she wants to. "I'm going to be _so_ mad at you if we make it out of here alive. I mean it, Stiles. I'm livid."

"That's definitely fair."

"You took away my choice."

He seems guilty.

"I thought—"

" _I_ thought you didn't love me anymore."

His mouth snaps shut.

"I can see why you might think that," he acquises after a pause. "Um, when you said 'if we make it out of here alive…' Do you have a feeling? A banshee feeling?"

Lydia closes her eyes, concentrating on the whispers that are always at the back of her mind.

"No," she says after a moment. "Nothing's standing out. I can't focus as well as I need to. I'm… distracted."

He grins at that.

"Oh yeah?"

"Now is such an inappropriate time to gloat over the fact that you distract me."

"What can I say; I'm an inappropriate person."

His lips are about to find hers for the first time in _months_ when a female voice breaks the silence in the air.

"You're a _banshee_?"

Stiles jumps visibly, startled, whirling around to try to see what the source of the voice is.

"What the—?" he says when there isn't anybody in sight. " _Again_? How many disembodied voices are there in this place?"

"I'm not a voice," the voice says, sounding disgruntled.

Lydia whirls around, out of his lap, looking for the source of the voice. Her eyes skate around the room until finally they land on a dark form resting on top of the island, on the end that Stiles is facing.

"Stiles?" she says, tugging on his sleeve. "I think she's there."

"Wha—?" he starts, then jumps when he sees the figure. It's a raven, set off against the darkness as a purpley black color. It is currently shuffling awkwardly back and forth, head tilted to the side, looking at them. "You're a bird?" Stiles asks, eyes widening.

"No," the bird says, sounding just as disgruntled as the last time, really.

"But if you're not a bird, then—" Stiles begins.

"You're a banshee too," Lydia finishes quietly. "Like me."

Stiles rounds on her.

"Can you turn into a raven?"

" _No_ ," she shoots back. Then she hesitates, turning back to the raven. "Can I?"

The bird nods, which is quite an odd thing to see, and Lydia knows that it's probably going to set in later when she's less shocked.

"They didn't tell me you were a banshee," says the raven, sounding conflicted. "I didn't know, I didn't…" She trails off.

"Uh, could you maybe _not_ be a bird so that we know who we're talking to?" Stiles suggests.

"No," she says. "But my name is Cassidy, if that helps at all."

"Cool," mutters Stiles, annoyed. "We're having a conversation with a bird named Cassidy. Great."

" _Who_ didn't tell you I'm a banshee?" Lydia asks, standing up and placing her hands gently on the counter. Behind her, she feels Stiles standing up as well, his arm nudging her as he stands next to her at the island.

"I can't tell you," stammers Cassidy. "I really can't."

"We've definitely heard that one before," says Lydia under her breath.

"But I… I didn't know, I promise. They didn't tell me you were a banshee, I don't want them to hurt a banshee, I just..."

Lydia had always thought that banshees were supposed to be old, ugly hags, but she had clearly proven that myth wrong. This banshee, however, continues to do that. She has the voice of a teenager, and she sounds _awkward_ as she paces back and forth across the island.

"So tell us," Stiles says, voice cutting her mumbling off. "Tell us so that I can get her _out_ of here."

"You're not supposed to get out," says Cassidy.

"Yeah, they're trying to kill us," Stiles confirms, looking over at Lydia with a very 'duh' expression on his face.

"He's not," disagrees their companion. Stiles blinks. "He wants you to stay here until your friend comes. The alpha."

"Scott?" whispers Stiles, horrified. " _Why_?"

"He'll kill me."

"You can fly up to that window and you can get out," Lydia says urgently. "It's too small and high for us, but you can break it and get out. Please. Tell us what he wants to do to our friend."

There's a moment of hesitation before she begins to speak.

"You talked to him earlier. He's a lich. Um, a druid gone bad," she explains when the two of them look at her blankly. "Basically, he was an emissary for a powerful pack, but when he watched all the calamity that surrounded their lives, he became obsessed with immortality. So Prospero decided to try to make himself immortal, but he couldn't do it… no matter how hard he tried. Eventually he did so many things to his body— and, more importantly, to his soul— that he ended up turning into a lich. And when he heard about a True Alpha who had the spark, maybe the spark of life that he needed, he decided to capture two of his pack members to lure him here. But… but he didn't tell me you were a _banshee_."

"Hi," Stiles says, raising his hand. "Uh, can you tell us exactly what a lich is? What his powers are? How to defeat him? All that good stuff? I'd do extensive research but apparently we need to get the fuck out of here before Scott gets here and so apparently I'm on a time crunch. Plus, you know, one of your guys took away my phone so… no Wikipedia. Thanks for that, by the way, that's just great."

Lydia elbows him.

"Stop it. She's being nice."

"Yeah, she's being great. Now she should keep being great and tell me how to kill the guy."

"And what did you mean by 'soul'?" adds Lydia. "You said he did things to his soul that turned him into this… thing."

"If a druid is desperate enough, he can tear off a piece of his soul and hide it in an object. It's called a phylactery."

"Oh, like a horcrux!" says Stiles brightly.

Lydia rolls her eyes impatiently.

"Yes, like a horcrux."

"Yikes. That's not good.

Cassidy stiffens to attention.

"He knows," she says quietly. "Listen, I have to go." She flies up to the small, circular window at the top of the sink, more decorate than anything, and lands on the edge. "You need to know that you're in here with a group of undead warriors, and all of them are under the command of Prospero. He's got ghouls, poltergeists, he's got—" The doors to the fridge and the drawers start to bang open, creating noise that Cassidy has to shout over. "IT'S HERE! IN THE DRAWING ROOM" she roars. "DESTROY IT AND YOU CAN KILL HIM!"

She screams, the window shatters, and she flies out of it, vanishing into the night.

That's when Lydia begins to feel an itch at the back of her throat.

"Lydia?" Stiles says, grabbing her arms and holding onto her as she begins to waver. "Are you trying not to—?" She nods, unable to move. "How bad is it?" Lydia shakes her head, eyes shutting tight as she wavers. "Okay, just let go. It's okay."

She doesn't want to, but her head is pounding and it builds up, higher and louder and when they hear a blood curling scream outside, Lydia lets out one of her own, turning away from Stiles and directing it towards the china cabinet, letting it shatter the glass.

When she turns around, he's still got his hands over his ears, and he's shaking his head, blinking blearily.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes. "I couldn't—"

He holds a hand up, blinking a few times to readjust.

"It's fine," he says finally. "Is she dead?" Lydia bites her lip, nodding. "Okay. We gotta find the horcrux."

"It's not a—"

"Yeah, whatever," Stiles says, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the entryway of the kitchen, grabbing their candles and relighting them on the way out.

"Do you know how to get there?" Lydia whispers as they walk through the hallway, quiet and scared.

She doesn't fail to notice the way he has his hand on the gun the whole time as they walk through the hallways. The house is like a _maze_ , and it's terrifying, trying to make it all the way to the entrance so that they can find the drawing room. She feels like something's watching her all the time.

"These undead things are like supernatural termites," Stiles complains, voicing her thoughts. "They don't bother you when you don't know they're there, but as soon as you do…"

He doesn't finish his thought, instead taking another turn and winding up… lost.

"Scott is _not_ having his wedding here," Lydia says. "It's far too big; the guests will never find the reception."

"I keep telling him he should have it outside, but you know her parents, they're kinda rich assholes and they like swanky places like these and he just wants to make her happy but I told him, I said 'Scott you can't live your life trying to please her parents, man,' and—"

"Can we talk about this later?" Lydia asks, cutting him off. "I think this is it. Isn't it?"

When she steps into a room, she can almost see the shadows of their past selves standing here hours ago, wondering if they'd make it back. Lydia is barefoot and her hair's fallen down and her skirt's ripped and she thinks she might have dirt on her face from the kitchen floor. But she's holding Stiles' hand, and if she has to be trapped in this mansion, she'd rather be clutching onto him than anybody else.

They enter through the door on the other side of the drawing room, the one that had been locked earlier, but she doesn't want to think about what it means that it's open and they passed through the other room trying to find the drawing room because, really, she just wants to go _home_.

"Here," Stiles says, lighting all the candles along the mantelpiece and the ones along the endtables next to the couches. Then he crouches in front of the fire and lights that too, throwing in a lit match after he stacks some wood. "This'll help us see what we're looking for."

"Um," says Lydia. "What _are_ we looking for?"

"A horc—"

"It's a phylactery," Lydia interrupts. "And I mean… what is it? It could be anything."

"Just poke stuff and see if it seems evil," Stiles suggests.

"So… we're screwed."

"Yeah, basically," he says, scratching his nose.

They end up dividing in two and searching the room, picking up different objects and touching and shaking them experimentally. Stiles finds a large, ornate necklace that he thinks must be the phylactery, but when he throws it to the ground it shatters easily, and they move on. After an hour of this, Lydia begins to feel herself getting bored, restless, and sleepy. And she can only imagine how Stiles is feeling, knowing him.

When she turns around, he's listlessly staring around the room, his feet tapping impatiently against the floor.

She's so distracted by the way his Adam's apple bobs in his throat when he swallows, annoyed, that she almost doesn't see the shadow creeping up behind him.

At first, she thinks it's just something in her peripheral vision. It starts from the corner of the room, inching slowly, silently, towards Stiles as he stands restlessly near the entrance to the room, studying a portrait. But when Lydia double checks, she sees that it hadn't been a trick of a light at all. There's something _inching_ towards Stiles, almost as if it's tip toeing.

"Stiles!" she cries out, and the creature swivels around to look at her before it bolts towards him, arms out.

It looks human, Lydia thinks as she shouts. It's made of shapes, of shadows, of darkness that swirls when it moves. Shaped like a man but textured like the smoke that ribbons out of a fireplace, Lydia knows immediately what this creature is. A shadow person, and not the first one they've dealt with.

She knows from their research that shadow people aren't necessarily bad, but this one is advancing on Stiles at an alarming pace as he dives under its arm, out of its grasp, and runs across the room towards the fireplace. He sticks a poker in the fire as it walks back towards him and thrusts it out towards the creature, but it doesn't help. His hands reach out and he grasps at Stiles' throat, fingers clutching around it. When he reaches up to try to rip its hands off of him, it doesn't do anything. He's powerless.

The poker clatters to the ground, falling at his feet, and it _finally_ stuns Lydia into movement.

Stiles' face is turning red, his mouth gaping open, gasping for air, and she doesn't know what to do because these creatures, they aren't corporal, it doesn't matter what she tries to do to it, it won't _die_.

But if she screams…. If she screams, she could kill Stiles too. She could be the thing that destroys the person she loves most in the world. Her scream could kill him.

Or he could already be dying.

Shadow people have been known to suck out the souls of those who they linger near for too long, and as Stiles loses strength, the longer he fights against this, the more his eyes seem to simply empty out. If she doesn't do something, he'll die. And if she does do something, he could still die.

Lydia makes up her mind. She opens her mouth, she summons all of her strength, and she screams.

It's just for a moment, but it's loud. She thinks it might be the loudest she's _ever_ screamed. She screams, and she thinks of all the times she has almost lost Stiles. She thinks of him vanishing into the flames that could have consumed him and Scott, she thinks of the story of Donovan almost killing him. She thinks of everyone who ever tried to hurt him; of every single time she walked away from him because she didn't understand what she was missing yet. She thinks of all the times she _missed_ him with everything she had, with every piece of her voice that felt silenced when she couldn't tell him what she wanted to. She thinks of losing him to a girl, losing him to the underworld, losing him to his own insecurities. She gathers all the hurt, all the pain, all the anguish, all the wanting. And, just for a moment, she screams with all of it.

The banshee. The wailing woman. The serpent underneath.

And always, in the end, just a girl.

The shadow person dissolves into air and Stiles falls to the floor, crumbling there. Lydia's heart beats in her ears as she sprints to him, collapsing on the floor in front of the fireplace, the scream still ringing in her ears.

" _Stiles_ ," she gasps out, voice raw, as she lifts his head into her lap, staring at his closed eyes and the blood drifting down from both of his ears. "Stiles, _please_. Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Come on, come back to me, _please_. Please!" She lowers her forehead to his forehead, murmuring it over and over again. "I'm so sorry, I had to scream, I didn't know how else to save you, I'm so sorry. Please, please, please." Her shaking fingers find his wrist, searching for a pulse, but maybe it's too weak or maybe she's shaking too much— it's futile. "Stiles, I love you. You have to wake up. Open your eyes, Stiles, _please_."

One of her tears falls onto his eyelid, slipping down his cheek, and his lids flutter at the feeling.

Relief seems to fall through Lydia's body as she watches him open his eyes to her, weakly searching her face. When he sees her start crying harder, his hand comes up to wipe a tear off of her cheek.

"Hey," he croaks, sitting up too quickly. "You okay?"

She almost hits him. "What do you mean am _I_ okay?" she demands to know.

Then she kisses him instead of letting him answer, pouring everything out into it— every single piece of herself going into kissing Stiles Stilinski. She gives herself to him all over again, knowing that it's entirely possible that she will regret it and not even caring. She is so far past the point of being afraid that he will hurt her— he has. And he will again. But not even that is enough to make this not worth it. Not even that is enough to make her want to miss out on loving him.

"I love you," he mumbles, words crushed against her lips. "I love you so much." He pulls back, hands framing her face. "I wanna be with you, I don't want to break up, I want this, with you, for as long as you'll let me have it. I'm not gonna walk away from you again. Not ever."

She nods over and over again, laughing a bit before she kisses him, relieved tears still streaming down her cheeks. He stills and wraps his arms around her as they kiss each other until they're breathless. Then he just wraps his arms around her body and holds her.

Her ears are still ringing from her scream, and now that her heart has calmed down, the world is suddenly more silent than it was before. That's the first thing that clues her in. Lydia pulls back from his arms, focusing on her head, on what she's experiencing there. She feels a force that is not quite her own will jerk her head up, facing her towards the bookshelf behind him.

"The books," she murmurs. "When they… when I was at the bookshelf earlier today, they… the books."

"The books what?" Stiles questions, but Lydia just shakes her head, standing up.

She walks towards the bookshelf, head cocked to the side, mouth open as she furrows her brows.

"I was at the bookshelf and they fell on me, Stiles. They fell. It's one of the books. They didn't want me touching the books."

Lydia reaches a hand up. When she pulls her arm down again, she is clutching onto someone's _soul_.

"Is that it?" Stiles asks, straightening up. She looks up at him, nodding wordlessly, her lips parted. He breathes out shakily. "Okay," he says. "So we destroy it."

"Not so fast."

Prospero. Lydia can remember his voice from earlier that night, and for some reason, knowing all that he's done, it frightens her even more.

(Or maybe this time she has more to lose. She has a future to walk back into. A future with Stiles.)

"Do you actually think you're in the position to be giving us orders right now?" Stiles asks the air.

"Maybe not. But I'm the one who has control over all the undead creatures in this house. Including Ms. Martin."

This time, the voice is coming from the front of the room. The two of them turn to the entryway to see a large skeleton standing there, draped in a thick black robe. But his eyes glow cold blue as he stares at the two of them, tapping his long, graceful fingers against each other. They make grating clacking noises as he walks deeper into the room, his body looming over them.

"You don't have control over me," Lydia says, her voice shaking. "I've never been dead."

"But you are a creature of the underworld," he points out, leering. He walks closer, grabbing her chin within his skeletal fingers as he whispers, "Aren't you?"

She kicks him, using her arms to shove him across the room, far away from herself.

"I'm a banshee, just like the one you _killed_."

"I didn't kill her," he says dismissively. "I had her killed."

"That's the same thing," Stiles says, voice hard this time. It's not a joke anymore.

"Your friend," Prospero says loudly, his robes floating behind him as he walks closer to Stiles. Too close. Lydia watches as he shifts uncomfortably, unable to hold eye contact. "Your friend, however, I will be killing."

"For _what?"_ Stiles spits viciously.

"For _life_."

"You're already dead."

"Yes. But I've never met a true alpha."

"And you aren't going to," promises Stiles forcefully. He raises the book up, and Lydia isn't sure what he's planning on doing, but she never finds out. Prospero raises his staff high in the air, and suddenly the room fills with creatures. She sees ghouls like the one from earlier, cackling at her and swerving around her. The poltergeists that have been torturing them all night are upsetting books and furniture and the art on the walls. There's ravens, too, or maybe banshees, and they all swim together at the top of the ceiling, creating chaos and noise. Lydia's hair blows in the breeze of their wings as she watches them.

She's almost captivated by it, until a poltergeists swoops down towards Stiles and she shrieks, grabbing the poker and swinging it at him, pushing it away from him. All of the creatures hollar angrily and begin descending upon them, attacking them, their claws ripping at their skin. Lydia hears gunshots and knows that Stiles has pulled the gun out of his waistband and has shot it.

"LYDIA!" he yells. " _LYDIA_!"

When she looks over at him, he's holding his arm high, his hand clutched tightly around the book. There's dark black blood sliding down his arm towards his chest. It takes Lydia a moment to realize that the blood is coming from the book, pouring from the shots that Stiles had fired into it.

He meets her eyes as he bats the creatures away with the other poker. She watches as he looks towards the book, then the fire, then back at her. He does it again, and recognition washes over Lydia. She nods at him, steeling herself.

Stiles pitches his arm forward and throws the book into the air. Lydia screams, using the waves to direct the book into the fire. It falls into the flames, resting there for a moment before it explodes brightly. There's a roar behind them as Prospero goes up in flames, his booming voice shaking Lydia's body to its core.

As soon as the sound dies in the air, the creatures vanish in a poof. The room is still. Everything is, for the first time since they got there, settled.

"Look," Stiles says, raising a trembling hand and pointing. There's a beam of natural light rippling down the plum carpet in the front hall.

"The door," Lydia says, taking Stiles' eager hand before she rushes out of the door and down the hall of the entryway. The front door is popped open, just a little bit, but it's enough to let in their beam of light. Stiles pulls it all the way open and ushers Lydia out before he slams the door behind the two of them, hard.

They sprint down the steps towards their cars, panting as they squint into the sun for the first time since they'd gone into the house. It's just peeking over the horizon, casting its first blithe rays onto the chilly morning.

"We made it," says Stiles, tone hushed and awed. "We made it."

Lydia spins around, collapsing into the arms that are already waiting for her. They stand there without speaking, holding each other, until the roar of a motorcycle breaks the serene peace of the front lawn. They detangle themselves reluctantly, turning to see Scott pulling up on his motorcycle, pulling off his helmet to reveal a concerned face.

"What happened?" he asks instantly, looking them over. Lydia knows that they must look like— messy hair, ripped and torn clothes, soot all over their faces. "You guys never called and I went over to check on Stiles and he wasn't there so I figured you were still together but then I called and I texted and something felt wrong so I went to Lydia's this morning and when nobody answered I—"

He's still talking, but Lydia's too tired to focus on him. Instead, she reaches out and grabs his arm, pulling him into the hug that she and Stiles had been sharing. She leans her head on Stiles' chest and clutches tight onto Scott's hand, overwhelmed with the feeling of safety and family.

The three of them stand there, holding each other, as the sun comes up. Eventually, they get on the ground in front of the mansion, and Lydia sits with Stiles' arms around her as he relays the story to Scott in a parched, shell-shocked voice.

They don't stand up until Scott's phone vibrates with a text. He looks up at the two of them, torn.

"It's okay," Lydia says immediately. "Go."

"I'm sorry, there's a sick horse, I have to—"

"Go," says Stiles, echoing her. "Honestly, dude, you have to work and I kinda just want to go to sleep."

Lydia nods in agreement as the two of them walk Scott over to his bike, typing something briefly on his phone. Stiles grabs Lydia's wrist, holding her back.

"Hey," he says, digging his hands into his pockets and scuffing his foot against the grass. His voice sounds younger. "Um. I was wondering… would you maybe want to come home with me?" She stares at him. "I don't wanna sleep without you," Stiles admits.

She doesn't want that either. Not ever again.

Lydia swallows the lump in her throat before she nods.

"Yes," she says, so glad that it was him and not her asking. She can't stand the idea of not being next to him right now. "Thank you."

"Guys, are you _sure_?" Scott asks, walking back over to them. "I know it's work but somebody else can look after the horse. You guys just went through this huge thing and I don't want you to—"

"Scott. We'll be okay," Stiles assures him, taking Lydia's hand.

"Mhm. We will," Lydia agrees. Stiles glances over at her, smiling. "We have each other."


End file.
